Chapter 7 (Two Sides to Every Coin)
Richard was awake and, after being introduced to Lilly, was sat up in bed. Lilly kept looking back to the curtain because she was fully aware that a nurse might walk in on them at any moment. She needed to be quick and get to the point. She had told Richard that she could help him, but he had to be clear on what he was saying.
“So,” said Lilly, looking down at the confused man, “forget about all you’ve seen today. Forget about the crap with this woman here,” she pointed to Cheryl, “and just tell me what you know.”
“From the beginning?” he said.
“If you can make it quick, yes. You said that this wasn’t your world.”
Richard shook his head. “My world used to look like this,” he smiled. “A long time ago of course.”
“What happened?”
He took a deep breath. “I was about 14. It was a warm summers afternoon. We were eating those big giant cookies you used to get from the shop - me and my mates. We’d bunked off school and were hanging around in the park. Everything seemed right with the world.” He was still smiling, but then his face turned blank. “And then they came.”
“Richard, I don’t like people saying they. What do you mean by they?”
“The Riders. Well, that’s what we named them. By the sounds of it it happened all at once. The sky turned dark and then gaps appeared in the clouds and these….creatures just came swooping in.”
“What did they look like?”
“They were like lizards. Eight-foot lizards. They stood upright and wore leather and armour and carried weapons - guns and daggers and swords. They rode in on flying machine. Like motorbikes without wheels. Like in Star Wars - those speeder-bike things.”
Lilly nodded. She vaguely remembered seeing Star Wars at some point. “Go on.”
“There were hundreds of them all over the world. They just attacked without warning, shooting people, blowing up buildings. The TV and radios all went down so we had no way of knowing what was going on.” He turned to Cheryl. “And that’s when you died. They hit the school. Forty pupils died along with nearly all the teachers.”
Cheryl shook her head, not sure of what to believe.
“We just hid in our homes. Over the years the world just fell apart around us. The Riders took some of us prisoner and made us work and mine for materials in the ground. They built big constructions around all the major cities. There were mass executions to keep people in line. Me and my friends tried to hide out in the countryside to get away, but they burnt all the forests and dug up the land to weed us all out. And that became my life up until last night.”
“What happened last night?”
“I was in the basement with Ellie, my sister, trying to keep warm when I blacked out and woke up with this woman,” he pointed to Cheryl.
Lilly nodded. “Thank you, Mr Hicks.”
“Just one other thing,” said Richard. “About six months before the Riders came there were some odd things happening around the town.”
“In what way?”
“People were having blackouts. Others were talking gibberish about other worlds, and the dead were coming back to life. I think the government were looking into it, but then the Riders came and nothing more happened.”
Lilly looked at him blankly and closed her eyes. “Very odd.”
“You said you could help him,” said Cheryl.
“I did,” nodded Lilly again. “I’m going to send this man away and bring your husband back.”
“What?” said Richard. “But I am Richard Hicks.”
“Yes,” said Lilly, “but not this world’s Richard Hicks.”
“I don’t want to go back there,” he said, sitting up and trying to get off the bed.
“Richard!” said Cheryl, holding him in place.
Lilly cracked her knuckles and then put her finger to his forehead.
“What are you doing?” he said, fear in his eyes.
“Just a little trick a picked up off my friend.” She looked straight into Richard’s eyes. “I am truly sorry that you have to go back there, but this, as you have already pointed out, is not your world. Mrs Hicks needs reuniting with her husband.” She screwed her eyes up tightly and Richard went rigid. Then, as she moved her finger away, he flopped down onto the bed.
“What have you done to him?” said Cheryl, checking her husband over.
“Do I tell you in layman’s terms?” considered Lilly. “Hmmm. Your husbands mind had been taken over by another version of himself. I’ve simply blocked those memories and thoughts coming through now. Your Richard will wake up in about twenty minutes and will be none the wiser.”
“But-”
“No buts. Don’t speak about this, okay, Mrs Hicks?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She skipped across the corridor and back into the bay were Roxy was waiting. Her nose had been patched up and she was sat with her legs dangling over the bed.
“Well?” said Roxy, still not happy with the events leading up to this.
“We need to get back to the Doctor. I’ve got some pretty important things that I need to tell him.”
The Doctor had cleared away his equipment and Holly’s senses had returned to some kind of normality. She was sat in the armchair drinking a nice hot cup of hot chocolate when Lilly and Roxy knocked on the front door and entered the room.
“What happened to you?” said Holly, noticing the plaster across Roxy’s nose.
“She did,” said Roxy, nodding towards Lilly.
The Doctor looked appalled. “What in the seven wonders have you been up to, Lilly?” said the Doctor.
“We needed to get into A&E to see Richard Hicks.”
“The source of the signal?” said the Doctor.
“Yep,” said Lilly, flopping herself down on the sofa and putting her feet up on the coffee table. “I’ve blocked the signal now though.”
“And what did you find out?”
“Firstly,” said Lilly, “what did you two find out? I want to see if it matches up with Mr Hicks.”
“Well,” said the Doctor, sitting down on the arm of the chair next to Holly, “I managed to open Holly’s mind and see what Roxy had also seen.”
“The dead world? The carnage?” said Roxy.
“That’s right,” nodded the Doctor.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” said Roxy to Holly.
“Just a bit. But that’s not the whole picture,” said Holly. “I was actually looking through someone else’s eyes. When I looked at a reflection in a shop window, it was my own eyes.”
Lilly nodded. “That about tallies up with what I found out.”
“Which was?” said the Doctor.
“Yeah, tell us, Dr. Galloway,” said Roxy. She had been very quiet on her way back.
“This guy, Richard Hicks, seemed to be temporary possessed by his counter part from this other world. I’ve blocked the signal now and he should be fine, but he basically gave us a recount of what happened. About twenty years ago, in his world, which was more or less identical to this world, the dead started walking, people blacked out and had visions. Six months later the skies opened up and these lizard creatures that they nicknamed the Riders came through.”
The Doctor nodded. “Just as I feared.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Holly, holding her hands up. “This is all getting a little bit beyond me now. Other worlds? Lizard men?”
The Doctor thought for a moment and then disappeared into the hallway. He came back a few minutes later with a big, full length mirror.
“Be careful with that,” said Holly. “If you break it my mum will break you.”
The Doctor smiled. “Holly, stand up please.”
Holly frowned.
“Stand in front of the mirror.”
She did as she was asked. “Now what?”
“What do you see?”
“Me.”
“Exactly. Now, for a moment, imagine that the you are the person - the other you - in that broken world.”
“Okay. I’m with you so far.”
“Move your arms.”
“What?”
“Move your arms. Pull a funny face. Anything.”
Holly laughed and stuck out her tongue.
“What do you see?”
“My reflection.”
“Doing?”
“Doing the same thing.”
“Exactly.” The Doctor put the mirror down. “Now, just imagine that the lines between the dead world and your world were blurred or even meshed together.” He interlocked his fingers. “If your dead world counterpart stuck her tongue out, what would happen?”
“Well, nothing.”
“No,” said the Doctor. “On a normal, ordinary, ice-cream sundae day, nothing would happen. But if the barriers were breaking down, you might copy your reflection.”
Realisation dawned on Holly. “Oh, I see.”
Lilly got up and crossed over to the Doctor. “When Roxy had those flashes, it was because at that moment in time the lines between this world and the dead world were that thin that Roxy was able to see what her counterparts eyes were seeing.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Roxy, feeling uncomfortable.
“The lines for Richard Hicks were even more blurred. His counterpart managed to make a full-on crossover, until I blocked the signal.”
“Well what about the blackouts?”
“If the counterpart in the dead world was dead, and the lines between both you and your dead counterpart became blurred, you would black out totally. There’d be nothing on the other side to filter through.”
“Shit,” said Roxy.
“Then what about the dead people?” said Holly. “Simon’s mum and the old dude?”
The Doctor sat down. “If the person here was dead, but the counterpart in the other universe wasn’t, then…”
“The dead would come back to life. The dead would walk again.”
“Tops marks to the dangerous one,” said the Doctor grimly. “Which also explains the regeneration of the bodies. It’s not just the mind trying to push through. It’s the entire body.”
“So Simon’s mum…?”
“Would reform and regenerate into a full, living body.”
“Erm, guys,” said Roxy, who had her phone out. “I’ve got a message from one of Foxy’s mates. Turns out he’s been found unconscious at home.”
“It’s getting worse,” said Holly. “We need to do something.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “We all need to take a little trip to the library.”
To be continued...
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